Neenah Paper, Inc. (NYSE:NP)

CAPS Rating: 3 out of 5

The Company is a producer of premium fine papers and technical products. It also produces bleached kraft market pulp in Canada. and its three primary operations are: fine paper business, technical products business & pulp business.

Recs

4
Player Avatar TMFCanuck (97.28) Submitted: 10/16/2006 11:09:58 AM : Outperform Start Price: $32.24 NP Score: -22.11

A sleepy pick. Management has done a good job to rid themselves of the albatross hung on their neck by the Kimberly-Clark spin-off.

To whit:

* Terrace Bay is gone, baby, gone. The pension commitments should reduce too.

* Half of the timberland assets monetized and essentially exchanged for the FiberMark business.

* With modest growth assumptions (which, given the stagnant growth in the past year, may be a big stretch, but we'll see) the stock is worth $40 today.

Ideally, management finds someone else to take the Pictou pulp operations, and further monetizes the remaining timberlands.

Management then can concentrate on the fine paper and technical products divisions. This would further eliminate the exposure to the Canadian dollar (pulp is priced in USD, but related expenses are paid in Canuck bucks, and that's done nothing but go up for the past four years), as well as pulp commodity prices.

Get paid a 1.1% dividend to wait too.

Not going to light the world on fire. But I don't think 12-15% annual returns from here (including dividends) are impossible. And that should be enough to beat down the S&P.

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